Paul Steane's Photography Pages

The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36 mile waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Construction began in 1887 and the canal opened in January 1894. See separate album collecting together all my Manchester Ship Canal photos.
Of particular interest to me are the bridges provided by the Ship Canal Company for the five railway lines that cross the route of the Canal. These were termed "Railway Deviations" and were numbered from No.1 in the west to No.5 to the east. In each case the railway companies forced the Canal company to build the new railway bridges and associated embankments, and test them as satisfactory, before the old routes could be taken out of use. This of course meant that both routes had to co-exist, and in turn this means that significant sections of the original routes are still visible to this day - despite the fact they were closed to through traffic in 1893.
This album collects together photos I have taken of the Railway Deviations and the original, pre-1893, alignments.